Microsoft Delivers Second IE 9 Platform Preview

A week shy of their self-imposed 8-week deadline, Microsoft delivers Internet Explorer (IE) 9 Platform Preview 2, a second developer-oriented release of its next web browser. Here's the word from Dean Hachamovitch:

When we started planning IE9, we recognized the need for a better feedback loop with developers. The developer community was clear that they wanted pre-release builds of the browser platform in a consistent rhythm, with a good feedback mechanism.

Seven weeks ago at the MIX Conference, we released the first IE9 Platform Preview. We committed to updating the Preview approximately every eight weeks. Today, we’re releasing the second Platform Preview of Internet Explorer 9, available now atwww.IETestDrive.com.

Today’s release builds on the first Platform Preview, delivering improvements to IE9’s performance, support for standards, and hardware acceleration of HTML5. We’ve also updated the test drive site with a new set of developer samples to show what developers can do with GPU-powered HTML5. As part of our commitment to enabling developers to use the Same Markup – the same HTML, CSS, and script – on the web, we have contributed many new tests to the W3C for HTML5, as well as CSS3 Media Queries and DOM. The Developer Tools in this preview include some new features to make finding and fixing markup issues easier.

Developers should expect much more from browsers in order to deliver the graphically rich, interactive applications that HTML5 will enable. In IE9, our goal is to provide professional-grade, modern HTML5 support on top of modern hardware through Windows. The IE9 Platform Preview and the samples at the test drive site show the significant performance gains that web pages enjoy when a browser takes full advantage of the PC’s hardware capabilities through the operating system.

Check out the post for more. It's unfortunate that Microsoft feels the need to even discuss pointless industry benchmarks, but that's the world we live in, apparently, and as you might expect, IE 9's scores are indeed improving. I'm more intrigued, however, by Dean's discussion around "same markup":

Web browsers should render the same markup – the same HTML, same CSS, and same script –the same way. That’s simply not the case today. Enabling the same markup to work the same across different browsers is as crucial for HTML5’s success as performance.

Discuss this Article 5

When dealing with "same markup" , my anecdotal evidence suggest that the variance is much bigger with IE versus Mozilla and Webkit.

I keep hearing that webkit in Chrome renders pages differently than Safari, but I can't think of a single instance when this is true. I don't have a ton of experience with Chrome, so I would be happy to get some example of this happening. I've been extremely impressed with the sameness of Safari versus Firefox.

"Web browsers should render the same markup – the same HTML, same CSS, and same script –the same way. That’s simply not the case today. Enabling the same markup to work the same across different browsers is as crucial for HTML5’s success as performance."

The problem is that HTML5 will still continue to be "a work in progress" until proposed ratification in 2022 (I s#*7 you not). Until that time, the W3C is still going to go hands-off on the proposals.

If Microsoft really wants it this way, they should tell the W3C to go suck a lemon and partner with every web browser developer to build a better web rendering standard. The W3C doesn't want to get involved in mandating rendering specifications for every component of HTML markup and CSS support, and therein lies the problem. If HTML5 is to succeed, they need to lock in on a specified feature set - SOON - and also develop real standards for rendering. Previous versions of HTML were pretty lax in implementing certain features, but now that there's at least somewhat more competition with Firefox, they need to start building better alliances so that standardization is an achievable goal.

I doubt it'll work in the long run though. There's just too many differing corporate attitudes, and they're all trying to compete. Here's the situation the situations that you've got today:

Apple + Google

Apple vs. Google

Apple vs. Microsoft

Microsoft vs. Google

Apple + Microsoft

Microsoft vs. Firefox

FSF vs. Microsoft

FSF + Firefox

FSF + Google

(FSF + Google) vs. Firefox

(Firefox + FSF) vs. Google

(Opera + Firefox) vs. (Google + Apple)

Google vs. (Apple + Google)

Google vs. Everyone

Microsoft vs. Everyone

Apple vs. Everyone

FSF vs. (FSF + Everyone, except Microsoft)

Until most of these disputes are worked out, I don't see HTML5 becoming anything more than Apple's love child. There's just too much FUD surrounding it from all sides. HTML5 has a stigma about it.

I'm not a huge MS hater. I'm excited to see them supporting some HTML5 stuff. But the whole "one markup" thing is a bit of koolaid. I'm all for reference renderings where they're helpful. All 3 browser vendors have been using those for years. They're nothing new. I'm all for more standard tests if they help. There ARE different versions of Webkit out there, and different versions of Gecko. And they all DO render things differently. But it's a bit of a stretch to say that they do so because (for instance) Apple and Google both had different opinions about what border-radius should look like. One version has a bug and the other doesn't... or in some cases they both have bugs.

I reads like MS is proposing that no one ever release a browser with a less than perfect implementation of a standard, which is nuts. Taking their own example, for the most part border-radius works just fine in those browsers, and the actual edge cases that would be useful (i.e. not huge dotted borders, but borders with different colors or widths), don't render correctly in the IE9 preview either. Should vendors have to hold up the entire feature while they work out some edge cases? Or should they just keep the -moz, -ie- etc prefixes on until things are ready (which is what they already tend to do now).

You know, the biggest problem facing web-based stuff in general is that it's trying to be something more than what it was originally designed for.

What happened to the ideal that web rendering engines actually COULD be different? That was one of the primary pillars of HTML when it was founded. The concept was around content, not context. The W3C actually allowed, and even promoted the idea that rendering engines be different. There was something better about the purity of websites back then too. When did people start getting hung up on the idea of a web browser as an application platform? I really think the notion is a bit silly. If you want to develop an app using HTML as a layout engine, bundle your own engine with it if you don't like how web browsers work. Putting restrictions on how a rendering engine works goes against the W3C's original ideals.

Here's an idea: Turn web browsers into "portal applications". Let web browser developers make the HTML rendering engine modular, abstract it from the host application, and construct a way to host it remotely. Each web browser developer would need to manage their rendering engine separate from the host application, but they would be able to separate development teams into those that build the engine, and those that design the UI. Updates would happen separately. Then, website developers can make calls to whatever engine they want, similar to how they can make calls to XML schema stored in central repositories. The web portal app can just take the HTML rendered output and manage it as a display surface. Then, it could be ported to managed/native API's, so it would benefit from hardware acceleration and be composited into the display window on each platform.

You bring up a good point. If you add up all these different implementations, standards, different file formats, of HTML 5, this is going to be an fight that you didn't quite mention.

Free for all.

Everyone vs everyone. Corporation vs Corporation, standards vs standards, file formats vs file formats, & an FUD fight between all of them. Absolute war between everyone for the future of the HTML standard. What I'm worried about is the differences in variances between Microsoft's, Apple's, Google's, Mozilla's, & all the other players.

I believe that enterprising young hackers will take advantages in flawed implementation's, flaws in the file formats, flaws in the different rendering engines, that leads to compromise. I think this is a bad idea & there should be a different way to bake these ideas without putting them into machines now.

Everyone's eating the HTML 5 hype. However I believe we need to take a different road that doesn't thrust untested tech into browsers. Of course I'd like HTML 5 to end up in our browsers, when all of the technologies are better baked, file formats agreed to, & we have security standards along with rendering standards in place. However, wasn't throwing web browsers into operating systems without baking their technologies to fruition the way that has lead to this sad state of security?

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